Karen replied in a hurt tone. “My friend Deborah, who didn’t bother to call yesterday, not even to say she wouldn’t be at the gym, and left me to hear about the accident from my daughter, who keeps trying to call Grace and can’t get through?”
Deborah was instantly contrite. She couldn’t answer for Grace, who loved Danielle like a sister, but Karen was her best friend. She would have called sooner had it not been for Hal, which was another thing to fault him on. But she couldn’t tell her friend about that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t phone anyone, Karen. It was a bad day. We were pretty upset.”
“Which was why you should have called. If I couldn’t make you feel better, Hal could have.”
Deborah cleared her throat. “That’s why I’m calling now. Calvin McKenna just died.”
Karen gasped. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. I don’t know the details. But I thought I’d run it past Hal. Has he left?”
“He’s on the other line. Hold on a sec, sweetie, and I’ll get him.”
Hal sounded nearly as hurt as his wife. “You took your time calling, Deborah. Any reason for that?”
Deborah might have said, Because for starters, you’re apt to take it the wrong way, but Grace had followed her into the den, and Deborah had no way of knowing if Karen was still on the line. So she said, “It was an accident. All I need is information. I don’t think I need a lawyer.”
“You need me,” he drawled, likely winking at his wife. Sadly, he meant what he said. He had loved Deborah for years, or so he professed shortly after Greg left, and no matter that she cut him off with, No way. I don’t love you, and your wife is one of my closest friends, he hadn’t taken back the words. School meetings, sports events, birthday parties—he took every opportunity to remind her. He never touched her. But his eyes said he would in a heartbeat.
It had put her in an untenable position. She and Karen had shared pregnancies, kid problems, Karen’s breast cancer, and Deborah’s divorce. Now Deborah knew something about Hal that Karen didn’t. Keeping the secret was nearly as painful as the thought of what might happen if she divulged it.
Hal had made her his partner in crime. She hated him for that.
“I don’t think there’s any problem,” she told him now, “but I want to be sure. I went down to the station yesterday.”
“I know. I talked with John. He doesn’t see any cause for concern.”
Deborah might have been irked that he had taken it upon himself to talk to the police, but she knew her father was right; Hal was the best defense lawyer around. And Hal regularly played poker with Colby, so his assurance carried more weight. Of course, things had changed since yesterday.
“Calvin McKenna just died,” Deborah said, “and don’t ask how, because I’m waiting to learn myself. Do you think this alters the picture?”
There was a pause—to his credit, the lawyer at work— then a prudent, “That depends. Is there anything you were doing at the time of the crash to suggest you were at fault?”
There it was, a golden opportunity to set the record straight about who was driving. She knew it was wrong to lie. But the accident report was filled out, and the fact of a fatality made it even more important to protect Grace. Besides, Deborah had repeated the line often enough that it rolled off her tongue. “My car was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. If they weren’t going to charge me with operating to endanger before, will a death change that?”
“It depends on what the reconstruction team finds,” Hal replied, less comforting than she had hoped. “It also depends on the D.A.”
“What D.A.?” Deborah asked nervously.
“Our D.A. A death might bring him into the picture.”
She had called for reassurance. “What does ‘might’ mean?”
“You’re starting to panic. Do not do that, sweetheart. I can get you out of whatever it is.”
“But what is it?” she asked, needing to know the worst.
“When a death is involved,” he said in a measured tone, “every side is examined. An accidental death can be termed vehicular homicide or even negligent homicide. It depends on what the state team finds.”
Deborah took a shaky breath. “They won’t find much,” she managed to say. Of course, she hadn’t imagined Calvin McKenna would die.
“Then you’ll be clear on the criminal side,” Hal added, “but a plaintiff doesn’t need much to file a civil suit. The standard of proof is looser. John tells me he got a call from the wife. He says she’s looking for someone to blame. And that was before her husband died.”
“We weren’t even going thirty in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone.”
“You could have been going twenty, and if she hires a hotshot lawyer who convinces the jury that you should’ve been going fifteen in that storm, she could recover something. But hey,” Deborah heard a smile, “you’ll have a hotshot lawyer on your own side. I’m giving John a call. I want to know what tests were done to register the guy’s blood alcohol or the presence of drugs. John said you took the crash report home with you. Did you fill it out?”
“Last night.”
“I’d like to see it before you file. One wrong word could suggest culpability. Are you going to be home for a little while?”
“Actually, no.” She was grateful for a legitimate excuse to see him away from the house. “I have to take Dylan to school and, since the police are done examining my car, I want to drop it at the body shop. Can you meet me at Jill’s in, say, twenty minutes?”
Jill Barr’s bakery, Sugar-On-Main, was a cheery storefront in the center of town. After leaving her car at the garage for repair, Deborah approached it on foot, her medical bag slung over her shoulder. Keeping her eyes on the sidewalk with its faux brickwork, she tried not to think of Cal McKenna’s wife. She tried not to think of vehicular homicide. She tried not to think that people seeing her walking along Main Street might view her now in a different light.
The sweet scent of the bakery reached her seconds before she came to the small iron tables outside. Three of the four were taken. She nodded at several of the regulars as the familiar aroma took the edge off her fear.
The inside of the bakery was gold, orange, and red— walls, café tables, easy chairs, love seats. Deborah had a favorite grouping among the upholstered pieces, which was where she would have normally headed. But people often approached her there. She even got the occasional medical question—Does this look like poison ivy? It was the downside of having a local practice. Usually she didn’t mind, but today she didn’t want an audience.
Half a dozen customers waited in line; another dozen were seated around the shop. Head down lest one of them catch her eye, she continued on through the swinging kitchen door and went straight to Jill’s office. She had barely settled into the desk chair when her sister arrived with a tray. It held three coffees and three SoMa Stickies. “I take it I’m joining you?” Jill asked.
“Definitely.” Taking a mug, Deborah studied her. Pregnant? With her short blonde hair and freckles, and her cropped orange T-shirt and slim jeans, Jill looked like a child herself. “I can’t picture it,” Deborah said, oddly bewildered. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Perfect.”
“Are you excited?”
“Beyond my wildest dreams.”
Deborah reached for her hand. “You’ll be an incredible mom.”
“Then you’re not upset with me?”
“Of course I’m upset. It won’t be easy being up at night with a crying baby and no one to spell